Who else? Who else but the senior captain? The energizing, All-American midfielder?
Who else but Andrew McAdorey?
Down two goals with four minutes left in the game, McAdorey scored back-to-back to send the game to overtime, then scored the game-winner to push No. 7 Duke past No. 21 Michigan 8-7. The result, which looked in serious jeopardy for most of Saturday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium, was the Blue Devils’ first ranked win of the season.
“It was a great college lacrosse game,” head coach John Danowski said. “I thought it was a terrific crowd, cheering on two opponents who both played really hard. It’s a shame one team had to lose.”
In the face of its highest-pressure moment of the season, Duke (4-0) didn’t fold. Instead, its sputtering offense found an elusive and all-important spark.
Down two with four minutes remaining, the veteran McAdorey worked the ball behind the cage, using a screen by Graham Blake to get space on the crease and sail a shot past Wolverine goalie Hunter Taylor. Ben McCarthy won the following faceoff, and just 65 seconds later, McAdorey did it again in a nearly identical wrap-around move. Tie game, now overtime.
“The key to overtime is not thinking, it's not hesitating, [asking] should I? Shouldn't I? Yes, you should go, go for it,” Danowski said. “Play to win, and if we don't win, we don't win.”
After three intense minutes of sudden-victory lacrosse, the ball ended up in McAdorey’s stick once again. The midfielder put his fingerprints on the game one final time, using his signature move, going back around the goal then launching the game-winner past Taylor.
“I've got a lot of confidence when that guy gets the ball,” sophomore goalkeeper Patrick Jameison said. “When [No.] 2 [has] got the ball on his stick, we know that the ball is not going to come back down to us.”
Facing its first power conference opponent of the season, Duke was caught on its heels early. The teams traded turnovers before Michigan (2-2) took control of and maintained possession for the majority of the first quarter. The Blue Devils were held to just five clears and five shots, just one of them on frame.
But as the offense stalled, Duke’s defense kept it in the game, starting from the back with Jameison. The Devon, Pa., native had five saves in the first quarter alone, vacuuming up anything close to the crease. Jameison made another big save with 4:28 left in the second quarter, bringing him to nine in the first half — just five shy of his career-best for a whole game.
Long-poles Jake Wilson, Aidan Maguire and Henry Bard helped the Blue Devils match the Wolverines' intensity on the defensive end, and both had several hard checks to prevent shots.
“Having a couple guys down there that, when a guy comes to the middle, they can hit them and put them on the ground, I think that’s big for a defense,” Jameison said. “Let them know early that they're not going to be able to walk through and get a shot off.”
It wasn’t until seven seconds remained in the first quarter that a goal was scored. Michigan worked to get the last shot, and Aidan Mulholland found a cutting Lukas Stanat in front of the goal, who dumped it behind Jameison.
Duke stayed cold in the second quarter, and found itself down two after Michigan scored again. But that was also the beginning of a barren stretch for the Wolverines, and both teams went scoreless through the middle half of the quarter, despite Danowski calling two timeouts to change his offensive shape.
Then, with 6:38 left, two flags went flying, catching Michigan for a push and a slash, leaving Duke with a two-man up advantage for 30 seconds. The Blue Devils worked the ball around before junior midfielder Max Sloat found sophomore Benn Johnston, who unleashed a rocket that Taylor had no chance of stopping.
The Blue Devils continued to struggle to put shots on frame, though, until a fast break finally worked its way to long-stick midfielder Mac Christmas, who converted from distance to leave the Wolverines with just a one-goal advantage at the half.
“I thought that we just mishandled things,” Danowski said. “The looks were there. Guys were making the right looks. The execution was poor.”
Duke started the second half hot with a knifing finish from Chris Cusolito to knot the game at three with 11:16 left. But the Blue Devils’ momentum came to a halt as a flag flew on the other end for a slash by the goalscorer, and as play continued, Michigan midfielder Dylan Bruno let a shot fly from deep that hit the net as the Duke defense stood motionless.
Such was the sequence for most of the second half: narrow Michigan lead, Duke tie, Michigan lead again.
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McCarthy broke that pattern for a moment with the opening faceoff of the fourth quarter for Duke, streaking down the field untouched to put the Blue Devils in front for the first time, 5-4.
But, the earlier pattern resumed as Mulholland scored again with 10:47 left to tie the game, then cut up from the crease unguarded. Attacker Ryan Cohen found him to dump in a second-straight goal and put Michigan on top.
And then, for the first time since its 3-1 lead in the first half, the Wolverines found themselves up two — courtesy of one of the game’s more dubious sequences.
A body check from the Duke defense put the ball on the ground, where it bounced out of bounds, handing Michigan possession despite grievances by the home crowd. The Wolverines took advantage of the gift, and a diving effort at the crease by Stanat put the ball in the net. However, the goal was waived off for a crease violation.
This was unsatisfactory for head coach Kevin Conry, who challenged the call. Upon further review, Stanat did not step in the crease, giving the Wolverines a vital 7-5 lead with just four minutes to play. A lead that McAdorey ensured would not last.
Next up for the Blue Devils is a double-date with the Ivy League, as Princeton and Penn come to town next weekend for Friday night and Sunday afternoon games, respectively.